Before Switching to a Fertility App, Consider This
Tired of the side-effects you’re experiencing from your hormonal birth control? Mulling over the idea of switching to a fertility app, such as Natural Cycles, which promises effective, hormone-free contraception? As a Fertility Awareness educator, I want to encourage you to consider such a move very seriously, but want to suggest you take one detour […]
Three New Technologies to Revolutionize the Postpartum Period
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I was forewarned that the postpartum period is a challenging time for a woman to chart her cycle and to understand the changes her body is going through. Inevitably, experience confirmed this for me. Because my husband and I practice the Sympto-Thermal Fertility Awareness-Based Method (FABM), we tracked […]
The Possible Cause of Lupus No One Is Talking About: Birth Control
Autoimmune diseases are a notoriously tricky group of diseases to treat. When a person has an autoimmune disease, their immune system is so overactive that it attacks healthy tissues in the body, causing a number of issues—many of which can be serious and life-threatening—for the affected individual. Women, in particular, are more greatly affected by […]
Petition Fights Social Media Platforms Censoring Images of Cervical Fluid
It has recently come to light that Facebook and Instagram have been censoring and deleting images of fertile signs that help women chart their cycles and practice Fertility Awareness-Based Methods (FABM) for family planning or health management. In particular, Facebook and Instagram have been deleting photos of cervical fluid, even when shared in private Facebook […]
Respecting Women as Women: Part II of II
Last week, we shared Part I of Jeanette Flood’s discussion on the “feminine genius,” what makes women and men different, and how respecting each sex involves respecting our differences. Here is Part II, discussing how Fertility Awareness-Based Methods are the method of family planning that best respects women. Losing Our Way—and Finding It Considering the […]
Respecting Women as Women: Part I of II
Women are not the same as men. This widely acknowledged truth applies in multiple, multiple ways beyond the obvious external differences. Each sex is more vulnerable to certain diseases than the other, and each responds differently to certain medications. Most everyone recognizes that men and women tend to think differently, and for good reason: scientific […]
Birth Control’s Link to Autoimmune Disease
Autoimmune diseases (AI) are enigmatic. Of the nearly 100 diseases in the AI family, none could really be labeled as prototypical. For years, the diversity of these diseases made it difficult for the medical community to recognize what was happening as autoimmunity grew into an epidemic. The fragmentation and compartmentalization of Western medicine essentially obscured […]
How to Solve Period Issues without the Pill
It’s no secret that hormonal contraceptives like the Pill, patch, ring, IUD, or implant are prescribed for myriad reasons beyond birth control. They’re also highly prescribed by doctors who hear their patients have acne, migraines, cramps, regulating mood, regulating periods, and even cold sores. According to Dr. John T. Littell, “Physicians in training during the […]
Birth Control, Blood Clots, and the Untimely Death of Alexandra Williams
Our story begins on April 17, 1998, at Durham Regional Hospital (now Duke Regional Hospital) in Durham, North Carolina when my wife Lisa and I became the parents of our first child, Alexandra Laura Williams. Her mother always called her Alexandra but to most people she was Alex. Alex died on September 27, 2018, at […]
Charting Your Cycle After Miscarriage
Life changes after a miscarriage. I speak from experience: nearly seven years ago, I lost my second child to miscarriage, and every part of me changed. In the time since, with care for myself and love from my family and friends, I am in many ways stronger for having been so broken. At the time […]